ATHENS, Ga. — The LSU Lady Tigers, fresh off hosting the annual LSU/Cleveland Classic that ended Sunday at The University Club in Baton Rouge, now will tee it up again on Friday in another of the spring classic, the Liz Murphey Collegiate Classic, hosted by the University of Georgia at the University of Georgia Golf Course.
This will be another strong field that LSU will face, with 13 teams in the top 30. That includes the Lady Tigers who moved up four spots to 25 in the Golfstat rankings after an eighth-place finish among 21 teams in the Cleveland Golf Classic.
A total of 18 teams including the Lady Tigers and the No. 3 ranked hosts from Georgia will be joined by: Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Augusta State, Florida, Florida State, Furman, Georgia State, Kent State, Michigan State, Mississippi State, Purdue, South Carolina, UCF, Virginia and Wake Forest.
Auburn off its third place finish at LSU last week moved up to No.4 in the performance-based rankings.
LSU shot one of its best rounds of the season Sunday in the final round of the LSU/Cleveland Golf Classic, a six-over 294, to move from 11th to eighth in the final standings. Rebecca Kuhn had the best finish at nine over 225, her third tournament in the last four in which she has been the low LSU golfer in the tournament.
She will have the No. 1 spot for LSU in the first round and will be joined by Alexis Rather, Melissa Eaton, Kim Meck and Caroline Martens. The Lady Tigers will be paired with Georgia State and South Carolina off the 10th tee at 8:50 a.m. CDT.
The University of Georgia course will have a new look after some $2 million in renovations that has lengthened the women’s tournament tees from 60 yards but dropped the par back to 71. For many years the tournament finished with lengthy par fives on 17 and 18 and played to par of 73.
“We are looking forward to seeing the changes in the course since it has been a couple of years since we were last at this event,” said LSU Coach Karen Bahnsen. “I hope we can continue the focus we showed in the final round on Sunday and play well from start to finish. We are capable of doing that, but our focus has to be there from the beginning and not after we make mistakes early on. We were disappointed in our finish last week, but we felt like we accomplished a lot in the final round.”
The tournament is set for 18 holes each day through Sunday and live scoring for the event can be found at www.golfstat.com.